She walked grimly to a long bench, seated
herself, and placed her right foot firmly upon a pedestal, full in the
gaze of a clerk who was far too young, she instantly perceived, for
negotiations of this delicacy.

"I wish to purchase," she began through slightly relaxed lips, "a pair
of satin dancing slippers like those in your window--high-heeled, one
strap, and possibly with those jewelled buckles." She here paused for
another breath, then continued tremendously: "Something in a shade to
go with--with these!"

With dainty brazenness the small hand at her knee obeyed an amazing
command from her disordered brain and raised the neat brown skirt of
Winona a full two inches, to reveal a slim ankle between which and an
ogling world there gleamed but the thinnest veneer of tan silk.

Winona waited breathless. She had tortured herself with the possible
consequences of this adventure. She had even conceived a clerk of
forbidding aspect who would now austerely reply: "Woman, how dare you
come in here and talk that way? You who have never worn anything but
black cotton stockings, or lisle at the worst, and whose most daring
footwear has been a neat Oxford tie with low heels, such as respectable
women wear? Full well you know that a love for the sort of finery you
now describe--and reveal--is why girls go wrong. And yet you come
shamelessly in here--no, it is too much! You forget yourself! Leave the
place at once!"

Sometimes this improvisation had concluded with a homily in kinder
words, in which she would be entreated to go forth and try to be a
better woman. And sometimes, but not often, she had decided that a shoe
clerk, no matter his age, would take her request as a mere incident in
the day's trade. Other women wore such things, and perforce must buy
them in a public manner. She had steeled her nerve to the ordeal, and
now she flushed with a fine new confidence, for the clerk merely said,
"Certainly, madam"--in the later shops of Newbern they briefly called
you madam--and with a kind of weary, professional politeness fell to the
work of equipping her. A joyous relief succeeded her panic. She not only
declared a moment later that her instep was far too high, but fitted at
last in a slipper of suitable shade she raised her skirt again as she
posed before a mirror that reached the floor. Winona was coming on. Had
come!

* * * * *

Late that afternoon, while a last bit of chiffon was being ta